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After the end of the Neo Egoist League, Bastard Munchen has a few days of rest before they have to go back to Germany.
While some of the players opted to go on a group outing or hang out with the Blue Lock BM players, Kaiser had just glared at all of them and muttered that he’d go somewhere alone. Ness, figuring that he’d need an opportunity to talk to him (without his teammates snooping), and that Kaiser was not in the right mental space to go on an outing alone, considering his temper and the fact that they’re literally in a foreign country.
“Kaiser, where are we going?” Ness asks, as he’s basically dragged out of the Blue Lock facility the moment Ego opens the doors. Kaiser offers no explanation. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
They get on a train after forcing Kunigami, who’d also come to the train station, to translate what the Japanese meant. Ness has to admit, Ego’s earbuds are convenient, but not really helpful, since they can understand what other people are saying, but said other people have no clue what they’re trying to communicate.
Ness and Kaiser end up just walking around and doing some mild window shopping in a tourist location for a while.
“Any reason in particular you wanted to come here?” Ness asks casually, trying to find an opening to ask his question.
“My dad talked about coming here when I was really little,” Kaiser says gruffly. “Coming here now is like a ‘fuck you’ from me to him.”
“I get it,” Ness nods along, admiring the shops. It’s a nice place, no doubt. Damn it. On a nice day like this, he can’t ask his question without ruining the mood.
“Hey, Kais—”
“Michael…?” Suddenly someone whispers, from a side alleyway that someone couldn’t see unless they were looking for it. “You motherfucker, it’s you… finally.”
Ness jolts, and Kaiser flinches a little in shock. They turn. Who the hell is it?
It looks just like a random, shitty old man. Ness glances over him quickly. He doesn’t look armed. In all honesty, Ness is surprised he managed to… horizontally fit into the alleyway. It’s probably just some random person who’s a fan of Kaiser.
“Sorry, we don’t know you. Please stop talking to us,” Ness says politely, tugging on Kaiser’s sleeve to move on.
Kaiser doesn’t budge an inch.
“…Kaiser?” Ness urges, tugging on his sleeve a little more again.
Still, nothing.
Ness looks up at Kaiser’s face. Not only does it look like a vein is about to pop, but there’s also another emotion glazed across his eyes.
He’s suffering.
“It’s about time you give me some of that money I get from raising you, yeah?” The old dirtbag sleazes, stumbling forward and out of the alley like he’s drunk. Ness would think he’s drunk, if it weren’t for the shocking clarity in his eyes. “Cough it up, Michael!”
It dawns on Ness when he sees his mouth. This man is speaking German. He understands them.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put the pieces together. Fortunately, Ness was surrounded by those when he was growing up, so he solves the puzzle pretty quickly.
“You’re… Kaiser’s father,” he assumes, instantly backing up.
If genotype-environment interactions determine the phenotype of an organism, then Michael Kaiser’s environment as a child was terrible. Kaiser had only mentioned his father one less-than-sober night and in passing. Hatred instantly bubbles up in Ness’ chest.
“What are you doing?” He demands coldly. This time, when he tugs Kaiser away from the ugly hands of his father, Kaiser obliges.
“Collecting a debt that bitch owes me.” The man’s words are lightly slurred. He points a finger at Kaiser accusingly. “You’re such an ungrateful prick. Why aren’t you giving me your fucking money right now?”
Are they getting mugged? Is this what it’s like to get robbed?
“Kaiser, say something,” Ness warns him. Kaiser’s father has them back up closer to the middle of the sidewalk. Ness clenches his fists.
“You’re such a useless fucker,” Kaiser’s father snarls, rather hypocritically. At this point, Ness has had enough. Rage gets pulled out of his chest and into his throat, throwing itself out in the form of words.
“You… you son of a bitch!” Ness screeches, resisting the urge to hit the man in front of him right then and there. The people on the street turn, a little bit confused as to why there’s a random guy yelling in German on the sidewalk, but Ness glares at every single one of them. They don’t fucking get it.
Kaiser stares at him, something between confliction and appreciation in his eyes.
Kaiser’s father glares daggers at Ness, teeth gritting together in a snarl-like way. It’s so scarily similar to Kaiser’s expression of frustration, yet completely different. Kaiser’s has a fire that burns for growth. It burns to make him better.
His father’s, however? It burns for the sole, immature purpose of bringing harm onto others who can’t fight back. Ness hopes it eats him up from the inside out.
It’s true that in human Mendelian genetics, an embryo receives one maternal allele and one paternal allele when forming a zygote. That zygote develops into a child over time, and that child turns into a functional human being. While not all genes behave in a Mendelian way, a child still receives half of their alleles from one parent and half from the other.
If that’s the case, Kaiser must be adopted, because there’s no fucking way he got any genes from that good-for-nothing father of his.
“You bitch…” Kaiser’s father growls, raising a hand in Ness’ direction. “I raised you, Michael! I RAISED YOU!”
“You raised abso-fucking-lutely no one!” Kaiser finally roars, yelling in a desperate way that Ness had never seen before. He grabs his fathers hand aggressively and wrenches it away from Ness, which he’s eternally grateful for. “Not me, not anyone! Go fuck yourself all the way to hell and eat shit on the way!”
With that, Kaiser finally starts to move, pulling Ness along. His heart is still racing. All he wanted was a peaceful outing, but of course it has to be ruined. Ness wants to strangle that man.
“Are you okay?” Ness worries, the moment that they stop at a street just a few blocks away.
“Fucking dandy,” Kaiser scoffs. “You’re okay, too?”
Ness tries his best to smile. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
“He was gonna hit you,” Kaiser states matter-of-factly. Ness notices that his voice is still trembling. He opens his mouth to respond.
Then, the people start to whisper.
“Oh my god, it’s that German duo from the soccer facility. Blue Rock, I think?”
“No, no. Blue Lock. I remember seeing them in some of Isagi’s games. Those two were on the winning team every time, but no one really liked them.”
“Isagi is a lot better at soccer.”
“Didn’t the blonde one team up with Isagi towards the end?”
“No, it was the other one!”
Ness tries not to yell at them to shut the hell up, partially because he knows they won’t understand him. Clearly, they inherited some stupid ass genes, because anyone with a functioning brain could clearly see that Ness’ final pass was not intended for Isagi. What is it going to take to get them to shut up?
“He’s glaring at us.”
“Ew.”
“Why is he doing that?”
Be the bigger person. Be the bigger person. Be–
Nah, fuck that.
“Shut up!” Ness shouts, in probably-fragmented Japanese. He’d learned that one from Kunigami, after stumbling upon him in the training room one of the nights after their game with his earbuds out. Involuntary liquid pools in his eyes.
“Shut up!” He repeats, less in annoyance and more in desperation. His head spins to spite him, and the voices dance around in his consciousness like his mental state is a fucking parade. He clutches his head. “Be quiet…!”
“What’s going on?”
“Is he dying?”
“Do we call a hospital?”
“Don’t call the hospital,” Kaiser says, in fractured English. Ness recognizes it from the weird way the words are said. “Please.”
After that, he leads Ness away to a more secluded area. It’s bordering a park that looks like no one has used it in ages. Ness takes the chance to just breathe for a second. Holy shit.
“Breathe. Don’t die,” Kaiser insists. How helpful.
“I’m okay,” Ness chokes out. “I’ll be okay.”
Kaiser hesitates for a second. “Okay,” he agrees slowly. “T is kind of… not what I do, but… thanks. For snapping me back to my senses.”
“No worries,” Ness sighs. “Thanks for snapping me back to mine.”
Kaiser looks at him for an uncomfortable second before he replies, “Uh. Sure.”
Still as eloquent as ever.
This would have never happened if he and Kaiser had never come to Blue Lock. Kaiser was always the better one, the smart one. Why is it changing now?
Ness thinks about the way their dynamic has changed. In Mendelian genetics, genes are either recessive and dominant, co-dominant, or express incomplete dominance, where an allele is recessive, equally shown with the second allele, or becomes a blend of the two alleles, respectively. Ness feels like he’s been through all of these stages with Kaiser.
So maybe that’s why he treasures these little moments so much.
Ness takes a glance over at Kaiser from the corner of his eye. There’s a little smile gracing his face, and Ness can’t help but think that maybe things are going to be alright.
He can’t seem to remember the question he was going to ask.